No Such Thing As Normal
by Geisted
Summary: For October 1st, otherwise known as DP Angst Day. A Jazz-centric oneshot concerning a captured Danny. Inspired by *demitasse-lover's art on dA.


**|Author's Note|**

Hey-o, there. Happy DP Angst Day! (Was...was that an oxymoron? ... I guess I should wish you a simple happy October 1st then ... sans the actual wishing part.) This little ficlet is heavily inspired by *demitasse-lover's halloween picture on deviantART, "_Oh hey, Jazzie-pants,_" -Thus, I'd recommend you take a look at if you're going to read this. Without that incredible piece of art, this thing probably wouldn't exist.

Here's a **warning** for mentions of unethical science. While certainly more mild than a lot of fics out there, it is your imagination that's at work here. .n.

(Somewhat Unnecessary)** Disclaimer:** I don't claim to own the characters or the image used as inspiration for this piece of fanfiction. Those belong to Butch Hartman and *demitasse-lover, respectively. Any credit goes to them for making the following story possible.

*throws document at site and runs*

* * *

><p>No Such Thing As Normal<p>

* * *

><p>Here sat Jasmine Fenton. The strong, overbearing and overprotective sister. Someone who was supposed to pull through any disaster with her studious brain intact.<p>

Danny Fenton was nowhere in sight. The younger, teenaged brother that kept her quick on her feet, and quicker to her thoughts, he drove her up the walls more often than he went through them.

The two had a typical sibling relationship; equal parts embarrassing, worrying, annoying, and occasional evil plotting. Despite the fact that even the most mundane aspects of their bond were sometimes complicated by the supernatural, they kept together and took it all in stride.

No matter what happened, they kept together because they _were_ together. Arms slung around each other's shoulders in times of joy, or hands held fearfully during darker hours— they were close, for siblings their age, and they always supported one another.

Sometimes words of comfort were spoken, and sometimes nothing had to be said at all. Danny would be there to encourage his sister, and if the need arose for a heart-to-heart, Jazz would be the one to coax the emotions out from behind her little brother's mental barricades. He gave her someone to worry over, and she gave him someone to listen to, to the best of her abilities.

The pendulum doesn't swing without a tick and a tock. Two legs are required to stand strong; without one, the other is unbalanced and unstable. A reliable crutch doesn't change the fact that something is wrong and something is missing. Jazz could only hobble so long before she fell.

For now, Jasmine was all alone; eyes wide and distant, thoughts disconnected, staring blankly at nothing in particular. Tears were trailing down her face, and she had almost forgotten why in her horror. If there was one thing to remember in anything that had happened to her that day, it was the terror she felt mere moments earlier. She could forget everything else.

She forgot about when she told her brother that she loved him, right before her drive to the library. She didn't think of the interesting people she had met and talked to while she was off on her day-long excursion for knowledge's sake. All the words she had spoken, all the notes she had taken, and any snippets of text she thought were important were suddenly and irrevocably not.

She had come home around dinner time, expecting to find her family at the kitchen table. When she couldn't find them in the house, she milled about for a while, distractedly checking her phone for messages and grabbing a snack from the refrigerator. She thought she heard muffled sounds from their basement laboratory.

An hour passed and the noises continued. She figured that her parents were still tinkering with some inventions, though it was getting late, and they should have left to at least get some food. She knocked on the metal door several times, but never received an answer.

It must have been near midnight when she finally decided to throw in the towel and march down the stairs herself. Jazz was already mentally exhausted; she had driven her car around the entire town twice, had called Danny's two closest friends and anxiously interrogated them, asking if they knew the whereabouts of her brother. So, she tiredly turned the metallic knob, telling herself that the irrational dread she felt was just that: completely irrational, and that nothing would come of it.

But she wasn't thinking about how she came to sit here. Nothing like that was of any importance. Not a single thing; not in comparison to her brother's (_so close to unspeakable_) plight.

Danny. An image of him, with his black, unkempt hair and icy blue eyes readily jumped into her mind. Maybe Jazz would have smiled, if not for the gruesome picture freshly superimposed over it. She knew the reason for her incessant tears: The new picture wasn't just a picture. It was a memory, from only a minute ago, from what she had seen behind the very closed door she was presently sitting against.

His stained, white hair, splattered with dark reds and neon greens (_in some sick imitation of Christmas_). His dead, green eyes, dimming from his agonizing suffering, like a light that's reached its furthest limit...ready to fade into nothingness and leave the room feeling empty. The hollow, gaunt expression on his face that was begging for someone to end his hurting.

Jasmine's kind heart splintered from the emotional pressure. For in that moment, she couldn't even imagine him in any other state. Gone was the raven-haired, blue-eyed Fenton who had his whole future ahead of him. There was only a tortured soul who might not survive to feel the dawn of his sixteenth birthday.

Finally, her thoughts turned back to her surroundings. Her body was starting to recover from its fright-induced paralysis. She had collapsed against the door to the basement. Metal and covered in hazard stickers, the hinged barrier was cold to her back as she sat there, knees drawn up to her chest.

When the haze preventing her movement finally cleared, her eyes widened further, realization of what she'd just witnessed slamming into her at full force. Internally, she screamed at her limbs to act, and they listened, though not without struggling. Staggering to her feet, Jasmine promptly stumbled towards the nearest trashcan.

There she lost what remained of her lunch, dinner, and sense of direction. Red hair tumbled around her shoulders, haltingly cascading over her black shirt. She was in a stable position, but the blue pants she wore still trembled with her legs. Because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't forget the image of her little brother,

strapped down to a metal table,

insides exposed for all to see,

pleading with vacant, pained eyes while she simply _stood_ _there_, unable to process anything, and then _turned around_ and _left_ without making a sound. She didn't think she could have if she tried, but that was besides the point.

Because she abandoned him.

The tears came freely now. She cried into her arms, the torrents of guilt and floods of terror that roared within her mind hesitating, only enough for her to regain some semblance of thought. She knew that every second spent in her own grief and horror was another second Danny was in agony.

She always thought she was the most level-headed member of their family. The one who made sense and never babbled on like her fa...and was never too engrossed in the sciences like her mo...and was considerably more sensible than her younger...brother...

Yet for all maturity she once displayed, she was not prepared for this situation. She knew she should have been; after all, Danny's two friends had discussed the grim possibility of the current situation with her on more than one occasion.

Half-baked rescue plans rushed through Jasmine's head as she realized that she couldn't face this alone. It was a conceivable idea that if she could convince her parents that there was a ghost attack somewhere in the city, they might leave the lab long enough for her to...

...to what, exactly? Panic compounded upon dread settled into her chest. What if they decided that Phantom was too important to abandon? What if she made it downstairs, if he was freed, only for him to change back out of exhaustion? Would the wounds transfer over to his human half? Would she be strong enough look at him, let alone carry him to safety?

No. She needed help. She needed help immediately.

Rising shakily on a now-emptied stomach and with an even emptier feeling in her chest, she rushed into the kitchen. Jazz skidded on the tile until her body connected with the counter. Ignoring the dizziness accompanied by the sudden stop, she desperately threw her left hand towards the landline, violently shoving her right hand down in the same moment.

No one could question her ability to multi-task as she pulled the kitchen phone off its hook and her personal cell from her pocket. She expertly dialed two numbers from memory: those of Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley. Jazz needed to be quick; her parents had told her they were almost finished, and with those words she could feel her stomach drop from the worry curling its way into her thoughts.

(_What are you doing up so late?_)

(_Go to sleep now, sweetie. We're almost finished._)

She didn't need to be quiet. And she wouldn't waste another tick of the clock thinking about why; for it all came back to what was downstairs in the darkness, where the only natural light source was her brother's ectoplasm splattered on the—

Tired voices answered.

"_Hello, this is Sam?_" / "_TF speaking._"

The two teenagers on the other lines chorused at once, while Jasmine put them both on speakerphone.

"_Hello?_" / "_Uh...Jazz?_"

"_Tuck, is that you?_" / "_Sam? Where's Jazz?_"

She took a deep, cleansing breath and prepared for what she was about to do.

"Listen to me, please, j-just listen. I-I can't...I can't do this alone." The redhead gulped, a tremor in her tone painfully audible as she spoke her next words. "They got him." Her hands trembled, feeling weak as her voice definitely was. She quivered, glancing anxiously at her reflection in a brand-new set of knives.

If she was pale before, she was whiter than snow now.

Knives, scalpels, saws, _Danny_...

The devices clattered as she hung up, allowing them to drop unceremoniously on the counter. Danny's friends knew what those three words meant; it was what they had always feared. It was her brother's least favorite, most terrifying, but most plausible excuse for keeping his secret a secret.

...but did the risks ever justify this outcome? Jasmine held onto an unraveling thread of hope that everything was a misunderstanding. _They aren't doing it on purpose...I mean, of course they're doing it on purpose, but they don't know it's him...right? Do they know they're hurting him? Or do they think they're hurting...him...?_ Her slightly irrational thoughts were becoming tangled, repetitive, uncertain. With each passing second she was less and less defending of her parents' actions.

In the end, there were more important things. She didn't need to be a budding psychologist to predict what was going to happen. It would all come down to forgiveness, in one form or another. Some piece of her mind had buckled down and started to pray that Danny wouldn't die tonight. ... Things were hard enough to bear with him there.

Quiet sobs wracked her frame as she gripped the kitchen counter. As they continued, they grew in volume and intensity while she waited for some kind of support to burst through the front door.

Unable to bear the anxiety mounting in the air, she took her phone and raced up the stairs to the landing, and then into her bedroom. Nothing could stop the tears streaming down her face. Absently, she sank into a chair. Only halfway paying attention to her surroundings, her eyes wandered to the worn teddy bear resting on the pillow of her neatly made bed.

_Pathetic. You're a young adult, and here you are, bawling yours eyes out at a minute-long memory while your baby brother is trapped in a perpetual nightmare—_

"No!" It wasn't until the word left her lips that she realized she had actually shouted it. Gripping her head, she knew she had to stop thinking like that. It was an acute reaction to stress, or the beginning of Survivor's Guilt, or something she could _name_, because then at least she wouldn't be so _afraid_ of it!

Her phone sat, mute, in her lap. Its dull surface exhibited wounds from the many times she'd dropped it during a ghost attack. She knew there was another number she could call; the blank, dark screen practically mocked her for it. The number of someone who would be able to stop what was going on, though at an unpredictable price. Jazz untwisted her fingers from her red hair. Biting her lip and choking back a sob, she could only wonder what the repercussions of _that_ would be...

Another shiver passed over her body. The girl looked askance at her reflection in the medium-sized mirror propped up on her wooden desk, somehow unsurprised by the creature that stared back at her. Long, red hair, only barely held in place by a blue headband framed Jasmine's too-pale visage, wet from the salty tracks her tears left behind.

Unbeknownst to the majority of the world, one of the flowery paintings in the room had been moved to cover a burn caused by emerald fire, and there was a hollow space in the wall where she kept her psychological research on every ghost she'd met. Under a set of floorboards in front of the bookshelf sat a large first aid kit; she decided to put one there after having to stitch up a gash on her brother that ran from his shoulder to his elbow. Nevertheless, the room looked like a normal place.

And the room around her made it seem like the world itself was normal. The bedroom of a young woman, still and quiet and peaceful, the patches of moonlight dancing on pastel colors. As if the earth was still spinning right along at 1,000 miles per hour, and hurtling through space at 67,000 like every other day. (_She curled into herself when she realized that sounded like something her brother would say._) That might be true for everyone else, but for Jasmine Fenton, time was painfully irrelevant and vitally important in equal measure. She imagined Danny felt the same.

Every second was misery for him, and yet, here she was: breathing, lungs safe and covered. Skin together, and hardly any scars. Heart beating, at only a slightly elevated pace; hidden, protected, and sheltered, in her chest like it should be. She couldn't fathom why someone would take those rights away from anybody. Was there anyone who deserved that?

No one; her brother least of all. His heart was noble. He protected the town, though the population called him a monster. He saved his parents from the attacks, even when all he would receive in return was another gunshot wound.

One Tuesday afternoon, Danny had landed in front of his sister in ghost form, just in time to fight off a group of human muggers. Already bruised and on the brink of unconsciousness, he took a knife in his side to save her.

_"Danny!" Jasmine screeched. "Danny, Danny!"_

_The threats were scattered on the ground, incapacitated. Her brother pitched forward, and she caught him just as his white hair turned black once more, his eyes switching from a blazing emerald to a dulling blue. Green ectoplasm stopped flowing from his many injuries; now red gushed freely, especially from the large gash on his left side._

_Words failed her as the colors splashed to the ground in immiscible puddles._

_"D-Danny, w-where did you...what did this to you? Tucker told me there was a d-decrease in attacks..." Her voice shook at the sight of so much blood._

_His icy gaze swung up to meet hers. "M-mm n' Dad," he barely managed to murmur past the trickle of red escaping his mouth. The expression on his face turned almost desperate, and he gripped her arm. "D-don't tell 'em. I-I know it's b-bad, Jazz, but you can't...t-they did this, and you can't...! They'll feel guilty, so...much guilt..." He closed his eyes._

_"Danny?" She whispered, watching the green liquid begin to fade. The cuts on her brother's battered face closed, becoming thin, hardly noticeable lines. She knew the gash was closing, too, and she was well aware that within the next week he'd only be slightly tender to show for it, but her thoughts were mostly occupied by his words..._

_Her parents had shot him this many times? Were they really that relentless in their attacks? He had escaped...just to come here and rescue his sister..._

Jazz's scientifically inclined parents bounded around the corner with rants of how they thought they had critically injured the town menace, only to have _it_ escape right under their noses. Jasmine herself was long since gone, cradling her brother in her arms, running as fast as she could to her car, which was packed with medical supplies.

He didn't want her to tell their parents the truth, even when he was heavily wounded. He was afraid that the unimaginable guilt they'd harbor for shooting at their own child would overwhelm them.

This was much worse.

Should she have told them that day, or any of the days since she discovered Danny's secret? Maybe then they could have prevented worse things, but nobody could have known that it all would lead to _this_...

His secret, of being half-ghost, was always an emotional roller-coaster ride. At first he really wanted to tell them, before his parents accidentally did anything that they would regret. But then he made a name for himself, as Phantom, through his public deeds– both the good and the bad. Jazz supported him as best she could, though she often wondered if she could be doing something more.

In the Fenton household, he found himself being loved and hated within the same breath. In one sentence, his caring mom would praise a grade he received on an English test. In the next, his scientist mother would speak of dissecting the "odd manifestation of post-human consciousness" that was Phantom. Danny started to feel strangely out of place in his own home; not to mention the various weapons and inventions that would respond to his presence with threats and noises.

Eventually, he was becoming more and more afraid that his parents wouldn't accept him. That they would kick him out for being a freak, or dissect him anyways like they had said. He feared a day of terrible misunderstandings, one where his parents thought he was either forced into servitude by Phantom, constantly possessed by Phantom, manipulated into siding with Phantom; or was actually dead all along, and they no longer had a son to accidentally injure while exorcising the malevolent ghost.

Then there was a time where Danny seemed to be solid in the belief that his mom and dad would accept him no matter what he was. He planned to mention the possibility of good ghosts to them every day, in order to slowly warm them up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, Phantom was simply a benevolent entity who sometimes had bad days.

Her brother plotted to eventually explain his abilities, his dual identity, the damage dealt to the city streets whenever he fought the evil ghosts, and the times where he was framed or forced into doing something that was anything less than noble.

And Jasmine was beginning to think that the plan was working, at least until her brother confessed to her how badly their parents had injured him, and how often. Then the day had come where he had collapsed into her arms, and pleaded with her not to tell them his secret, because now there was another factor in the mix.

Guilt, of the overwhelming kind.

His parents had shot at him before, it was true. More often that not, they had missed. They'd snagged him in nets, stuffed him into their ghost-proof containment devices, and shocked him with their Specter Deflectors. All of that was forgiven easily enough; he escaped each and every time. Even the cruel amount of wounds sustained from his parent's ecto-weapons that rainy Tuesday would be forgotten and completely overcome, given time.

Minutes ago she had little more than a short-lived stare into the darkened basement, but she felt his pain. She saw the _inside_ of him. And she knew they were not wounds so readily forgiven. Jazz knew, if nothing else, that she would not look at her parents in the same way for a long time yet. She wondered if they even deserved the title of caretakers when they had caused such harm.

She sighed roughly, mental capacities exhausted. The clock in her room chimed one o'clock: a new day. A new dawn. Would it be without her brother?

Urgent knocking at the front door stirred the redhead to her feet.

* * *

><p>Knowing Danny, his entirely unselfish heart, and his faith in second chances, he'd sooner hug his mother than hate her. He'd be making fudge with Jack Fenton in a matter of weeks– probably gushing apologies and excuses every other step of the way.<p>

_Or maybe he'll be bitter. I wouldn't be completely surprised if he acts out of character. That would be the sane reaction to this mess_, Jazz thought, while she waited for her brother to wake up, in the bedroom belonging to one Foley family.

Then again, her brother was never normal, even before his accident. Afterwards, he was just _the_ most atypical person in the entire city of Amity Park– ghosts included. Not to mention the fact that there was nothing average about the town in the first place. (_It was a decent place to exist half the time, and a struggle for that existence the other half._)

Danny deviated so far from the norm that the laws of physics took an extended vacation whenever he was around. So perhaps her little brother really would be forgiving of his parents' actions. Perhaps he would be willing to mend things between them, after all.

"J...azz...?"

The raspy voice derailed her train of thought, and she could only blink as it mentally crashed and became a fiery wreck.

"Danny?" She called softly, as if loud words might break her younger sibling. Jasmine held back the urge to weep at his pain; she wasn't strong before, but now that her brother was relatively safe, she could play the part.

The girl was surprised by a half-smirk from him, though the positive expression was marred by the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the paleness of his face. Green eyes looked away from her, brimming with tears.

"I'm a-assuming...that 'm not d-dead?" The half-smirk stayed.

She hastily wiped away the salty water that ran down her face. She gave him a small smile. Unsure of what to say, she squirmed for a moment before she replied.

"You know what happens when you assume, little brother," she said with fondness. A weak chuckle emanated from his throat. He turned his glowing gaze back to her, amusement clear and innocence shining.

"Do I?"

The normal reaction from an average human being likely would have been harsher. Any other teenaged boy would have immediately devolved into tears, asked questions, or begun a tirade on the pain and agony they felt. Instead (_and just as Jasmine had hoped_), he opened with unusual optimism, not anger; an emotion which would have been predictable and entirely normal.

But with Danny, there really was no such thing as normal, was there?

* * *

><p><strong>|AN|**

So, Danny is still in existence...somehow... (one cheer for overused plot devices) I did my best with the time that I had. Unless you're allowed to start _before_ October 1st to write for DP Angst Day... Which is probably the case... but I guess I just enjoy my own challenges. I'm happy with how it turned out.

There may be a few timeline discrepancies here and there, but if you spot any obvious mistakes, do tell. I'm kind of lacking in the outside perspective department.

If baked goods transferred well over the internet, all the nice/constructive reviews would receive cookies. In the case of flaming reviews, they would be used to reheat the hot chocolate that cooled while I was writing. .w.

Have a nice day.


End file.
